Microsoft Tries a Different Tack

There have been many ad campaigns for various Microsoft operating systems, over the years. My personal favorite is the Windows 95 ‘Start Me Up’ ads, as they featured  great music with the slice of information. Some may cite that lately Microsoft is trying to be a bit edgier and more biting with the laptop ads attacking the pricing structure of Apple.

Having no solid ground on which to attack Apple’s Snow Leopard on price, the company is trying a different strategy - being cute. Download Squad has a video clip of the new, warm, fuzzy, and cute ads for Windows 7.  It features bunnies and flowers!

Sex sells. You knew that. But you know what else sells? Cute. And that’s the approach Microsoft is taking with its first ad for Windows 7.

Microsoft has been putting out high profile ads for the last year or so, promoting PCs and briefly Jerry Seinfeld. But for the most part these ads have been based on image and haven’t really mentioned Microsoft’s core product: its operating system.

The latest ad features Kylie, a little girl who we earlier learned was a PC. This time she has put together a slide show displaying some of the nice, happy words that people have said on the internet about Windows 7 along with happy pictures of ridiculously cute things like a bunny wearing a hat.

Of course, the ad still doesn’t really tell us much of anything about the actual product. But you know what? Sometimes the best ads don’t. If you want to know about Windows 7’s security features, new taskbar, improved media center functions, or other tidbits, you just have to hop online and look them up. This is the kind of ad that’s supposed to make you feel good about the product, not teach you about it.

You can check out Kylie’s first ad for Microsoft after the break. The funny thing is that at the time it was launched, Kylie’s “I’m a PC” video was one of the few in the series that actually showed some of the things you can do with a PC, and implied it was so easy a 4 and a half year old girl could do it. I’m not quite as convinced that she could really have put together the slideshow above on her own… or have chosen the music.

Yes, the little girl packaging pictures for the relatives was cute, but it really left me cold, as children that age are remarkably adaptable, so the operating system could have been any one with a GUI, and she would easily pick up the steps to do what she wanted to do. I happen to disagree strongly with the above author - I think you could put almost any 4 year old in her place and get those things done - that was the point.

I’m a bit harder to please with commercials…show me something that can’t easily be done with something else (Linux, OS X, FreeBSD, etc.). That’s what the Start Me Up commercials did, and why, for me, they worked. That reason is also why the Vista campaign stunk on ice. It showed nothing but some swooshing colors, and not much else. Oh, and the wow still hasn’t visited.

The people who design these things need to remember that they should try to hit different notes for different parts of the population, as the marketing is supposed to appeal to the very widest audience. (I’m also a believer that, while you are supposed to appeal to the widest range of people, the cretin crowd is not part of anyone’s demographic, as they rarely buy for themselves.)

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It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours. Harry S. Truman

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